This year, World Environment Day (WED) , celebrated on the 5th of June, will highlight the issue of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the context of climate change. Alongside building momentum towards the Third International Conference on SIDS in September, WED will promote a greater understanding of the importance of SIDS and the urgency of helping to protect them against the growing risks and vulnerabilities brought on by climate change.

WED is a UN initiative which aims to foster worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years WED has expanded, becoming a universal platform in more than 100 countries. In doing so, individuals across the globe are encouraged to do something positive for the environment with the hope of generating a collective positive impact on the planet.

IFAD is enhancing its approach to rural development in the context of increasing environmental threats, including climate change. IFAD is committed to scaling up successful ‘multiple-benefit’ approaches to sustainable agricultural intensification by smallholder farmers such as building climate resilience through managing competing land-use systems, alongside reducing poverty, enhancing biodiversity, increasing yields and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Similarly, new efforts have been directed to enable smallholder farmers to benefit from climate finance so as to reward multiple-benefit activities and help counterbalance the transition costs of changing agricultural practices. In this framework, IFAD’s Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) is a new multi-year and multi-donor financing window to channel climate and environmental finance to smallholder farmers through IFAD-supported programmes.

With the intention of living up to last year's success in raising awareness on WED IFAD is running an interactive exhibition in the foyer at IFAD HQ on the work that IFAD is doing on the environment; fighting rural poverty in an environmentally sustainable way.